A conversation with an NLP/Hypnotherapy coach got me thinking. Here was an expert at creating dialogue – it’s what coaches do – yet she was very uncertain about the dialogue of Social Media.

So, this article is to unravel the irony/marketing speak and explain the top four areas to focus on.

Establish who you want to talk to: this might be all or a combination of prospects, customers, media, referrers, influencers or other stakeholder. Define the characteristics of each group and create a fictional character to represent them, so that you can create a lifelike picture of their likes/dislikes, wants/needs/interests etc. This way you can really get to know them as people

What it is you want to accomplish? This might be to get customers to come back for more, convince referrers and stakeholders that you are the best in your field, or get people to seek your opinion. Overlay this onto each group of people that you wish to reach. Don’t confuse this with selling and promotional offers; Social Media isn’t about overtly ‘selling’, it’s much more about informative two-way conversation and keeping in touch

Where will you find the people that you wish to have a dialogue with? Using the search functions, check out the various Social Media, to see if you can find content around your topic of interest or people you want to have a dialogue with. I would start with LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. For the time being focus on these, expand to other media such as Pinterest as you gain confidence.

Establish topics that will interest your audience and activity to stimulate dialogue that can be measured? This might be content to place you as an expert, ‘personality’ or commentator, or hints and tips for self-help, communicated through video segment, podcast, blog or e-book, measured by number of viewers, downloads, comments etc.

As with most things, keep it simple and manageable, don’t be too ambitious. Constantly test what you do. Have a plan. Publish regularly, making it interesting, different and topical and you will soon be enjoying Social Media success.

HMV’s antecedents go back to the 1890’s and Jessop’s 1935, but like Woolworth in the past, they have joined a list of Public names that have failed, putting many out of work and yet another nail in the high street coffin. But what went wrong?

I don’t think that’s too much of a secret. Change of market needs, change of customer purchase methods combined with the burden of high overheads. More interesting is why? Why do two successful, well-established and popular brands get in this position?

I think three reasons stand clear, head and shoulders above the rest. The deadly combination is Leadership that lacks vision, poor marketing and business development inertia.

And once the tipping point is reached and marketing advantage lost, as these two giants show, there is no return and no amount of public nostalgia about support helps. The only things that do, are sales and cash in the bank from customer’s buying.

In the UK, most of these death cries go unnoticed because of our 4.8M businesses, 4.6M or 96% of them are micro businesses employing 0-9 people.

So when it hits the fan, there’s hardly a blip on the news radar.

But make no mistake, business failures are regular, painful and common, which is why owners should wake up to the need to keep in touch and make marketing and business development a priority.

Know your customer’s needs and know what they want to buy would be my mantra. And it shouldn’t be an annual research activity but a continuous process embedded into business DNA.

Many small businesses and organisations, often as a consequence of day-to-day pressures on their time, have a stop/start approach to marketing.

This FREE 40 Minute marketing session will enable you to prioritise the key areas to work on and where to effectively dedicate your time.

Imagine how much more confident you would feel knowing that you had a marketing plan in place where you can measure the effectiveness of everything you are doing?

Delivered by a either a 40-minute video Skype, or meeting at my office, I will take you through the marketing essentials, to help you get right to the heart of what’s important when it comes to promoting your organisation.

Here is a short video to tell you more

Together we will explore and create a 5-point Action Plan that will help you:

Social Media is a big new world of opportunity to explore, but where’s the best place to start the journey?

The statistics surrounding Social Media are mind boggling. However I consider this one to be the most telling, as recommendation has always been the most effective way to achieve sales….

“56% of consumers say that they are more likely to recommend a brand after becoming a (facebook) fan”. (Source Digital buzz).

This really highlights the power of Social Media and the crucial importance of getting behind it and embracing this new media.

Because it is new, it is often misunderstood and dismissed as a fad, which it isn’t.

Personally, I believe the three key aspects of Social Media to consider are that…

It isn’t primarily about selling; it’s about creating a new type of dialogue, centred around freedom of expression that can then lead to customers buying from you

It isn’t free. It requires time, effort and skill to navigate the journey and to develop and nurture an audience to effectively develop a relationship with them

Despite the bad press in some quarters, it has an integral role to play with every business and organisation; from smallest to largest. Like the telephone, email, letter and meeting, it is a basic business tool!

These are also the three basic principles that FCG Consultancy’s SMO process is built around.

This is why it provides a quick, simple and cost effective way to identify how Social Media can be of benefit to you and how you can take advantage of what it has to offer, without creating a time or money soak.

So how does FCG’s SMO process work?

The goal is to quantify the impact, cost and return that Social Media could bring to your organisation.

This is achieved through a combination of questionnaires, interviews, workshop and desk research to create a ‘Snapshot’ of your business, from the perspective of owners, staff and selected customers.

We ask what it is they like about you, what it is that makes you stand out from the crowd and what you could do better.

We assess the resources open to you.

Then we combine this information with our marketing, communications, business development and social media knowledge, to identify for you a top level Social Media strategy that is both manageable and focussed on achieving the objectives identified through our consultations.

The result is a valuable 10 page white paper, specific to your business. This will help you to gain insights into how you can start and develop a Social Media dialogue to build customer loyalty that, in turn, will lead to increased sales.

Does that sound like a good plan?

For SME’s and charities, for orders placed before 1st July, the cost of this service starts at just ‘£295.

It comes with a 7 day money back guarantee. So you can be 100% confident that you will be getting the information you need to act upon or it won’t cost you a penny.

At a recent buyers seminar one buyer commented that he was receiving less and less sales phone calls, yet his email ‘in’ box was jam packed with ‘Dear sir’ selling emails, most of which he deleted without reading.

Email is seductive. At the touch of a button with an e-marketing system, Sales people can blitz hundreds of emails within seconds.

It makes them look productive as the numbers are big. However, unless emails are personalised, targeted and specific, the chances of success are minimal.

So why the switch? The cynical, myself included, will already know that some sales people making a career out of avoiding using the phone to sell and email marketing provides the perfect smoke screen for an excuse to stop phoning prospects.

However, the reality is that, in business to business sales the telephone is an even more powerful selling tool today, than in the past. The Direct Marketing Association’s response rate report, has established that cold calling customers yields the highest response rate. 6.16% achieved, higher than response rates for direct mail, email, paid search and internet displays.

With the market getting tougher, volume of sales calls being made down combined with the chances of getting through higher, opportunity for success increases. But it is essential to communicate the right message, what you say has to be relevant.

These 5 top tips will make sure you get a great start.

Time the call to avoid the gatekeeper. Call before 9.00am, lunchtime or late afternoon and you will have a very good chance of avoiding the gatekeeper, speaking directly with the person you wish to speak with.

Always carefully research and plan the call. Be clear about your objective; sale, meeting, harvest details/information etc. Pitch your opening statement so that the listener can instantly see the benefit of a conversation with you. Know the interests of the person for the human touch. Make accurate follow-up notes.

Keep to the point. Don’t wander of topic or start to waffle. Ever.

Use Psychology. Empathise, build rapport, listen carefully to what is being said and take a genuine interest in the conversation so that you answer questions in a relevant manner.

Act. At the appropriate point ask for the sale, appointment or information you need don’t procrastinate.

It’s not easy, which is why telephone selling is a highly sought after skill. If you are looking to improve this aspect of your business, I would be happy to share my knowledge with you.

Direct mail and Direct response advertising are very blunt tools compared with the way that modern Digital marketing is now driving sales and completely changing the role of Marketing Directors.

It’s about one word, ‘accountability’.

Digital marketing enables communication, promotion and measurement through multiple channels, enabling the creation of balance between branding, customer retention and sales; something that has never been possible before.

Today’s customers are more demanding and hungry for dialogue. Creativity is essential, the last thing they want is a ‘sales pitch’, the downfall of many a ‘Twitter’ strategy.

Digital marketing enables interactive communication across multiple platforms simultaneously, for example Smartphone, TV, Tablet and Computer. So it’s essential that the creativity and promotional mechanism is appropriate to the channel. Whilst a tablet user might be drawn to an ‘interactive game style’ promotion, a PC user will inevitably respond to a more ‘drill down’ information approach.

The major impact this all has, is that marketing now has a dual role. It can generate well qualified leads and also fill a Company’s sales pipeline.

So, assuming that the appropriate Web Content Management system is in place, organisations can take a critical look at achievement of marketing goals vs. spend vs. revenue generation. For the first time the direct correlation between the three can be measured.

And with this new accountability comes power. The skilled Marketing Director now has the ability to drive revenue for their Company, something that traditionally was once the domain of the Sales Director and previously often a source of conflict and frustration.